7-hour trip to Iraq turns into 12 as convoy hits delays

Early Monday afternoon, for the third time that day, Spc. Steven Webb climbed out from behind the wheel of his Humvee to stand guard over a convoy of dozens of trucks that had come to a stop.

A flatbed truck driven by a contracted civilian driver was getting ready to lose its load. The convoy had just passed through a 20-mile stretch of unpaved, bumpy highway - pure desert driving, Webb called it - and it almost bounced a pallet over the side. The convoy had to wait until everything was secured.

That morning, Webb and more than a dozen other soldiers from the Fort Eustis-based 7th Transportation Group left Navistar, a military base in Kuwait that serves as the border crossing and staging area for convoys headed to Iraq. Webb's convoy was bound for Camp Anaconda, a supply distribution hub north of Baghdad.

It was the first time since arriving in the desert a month ago that the group's soldiers had the chance to hit the road.

"This stuff makes you feel like you are really in the Army," Capt. Thomas Crane had said at Navistar as he pored over last-minute reports of roadside bombs and ambushes happening along the way. Crane is one of the group's intelligence officers along for the ride to get a feel for the dangers on the roads.

"It's what we train for. Not that I joined the Army for this stuff, but it's better than sitting back at Camp Arifjan in a cubicle."

The soldiers travel in gun truck Humvees outfitted with armor and a .50-caliber machine gun to protect the Iraqi Express convoy. The Army dubbed it the express because it runs up and down Iraq, delivering supplies to troops stationed in the heart of the country. The express doesn't haul tanks or fighting materials. Monday it was hauling everything from water to bubble wrap.

While stopped, other than the nearly half-mile-long stretch of trucks sitting on MSR Tampa, the military's main supply route, Webb surveyed terrain that was nothing but desert.

The desert turns a bit greener as you travel north into Iraq. Southern Iraq is dusty and barren other than the occasional shepherd and flocks of sheep, camels and goats.

But once you get past Camp Cedar, the first truck stop for convoys near Nasiriya, you see palm trees, bright green bushes, larger flocks of farm animals and fewer children begging for water.

On the surface it seemed almost silly for Webb and other soldiers to pace back and forth with loaded automatic weapons.

Then suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, dozens of Iraqis appeared on the side of the road.

Webb looked one way, then another, looking for one of the hundreds of mud huts or tattered tents he passed up to this point.

But there was nothing.

"I was just wondering that myself," Col. Jeff Miser, the group's commanding officer, said to Webb. "Where in the world did they come from?"

Men walked up wearing red and white checkered head scarves, full length white gowns and tattered sandals.

Women approached almost completely covered, showing only portions of their blank dusty faces.

Children, running hand in hand, wore little more than a smile as they greeted the soldiers with peace signs.

"Look at their feet," Webb said, still holding his weapon, ready to fire if a threat emerged. "Those kids don't even have any shoes. I'll tell you one thing: Anyone in the States who thinks they have it bad at home needs to just take one trip over here and they will realize how good they have it."

Minutes later the convoy moved again. No threat had come out of the crowd. In fact, from Navistar to Scania, a truck stop near Babylon, the group encountered no one who wanted to do them harm.

"And that's just fine with me," said Sgt. Brian Melson, the gunner atop one of the Humvees.

The only things that kept them from making good time on their 300-or-so-mile first leg were issues within their convoy and convoys ahead of them.

First, one of the group's Humvees had to be sent back down to Kuwait after they reached Cedar. The batteries weren't keeping a charge, and the truck was losing communications.

It took an hour to regroup the soldiers and assign new trucks.

That pallet that Webb helped guard as it was pushed back onto the flatbed nearly fell off three times. Each time, the entire convoy had to stop and the tow truck in the group had to hook a chain to the pallet and pull it back into place.

Then, less than 15 minutes after the third time the load was secured, two trucks driven by civilians in one of the convoys ahead were involved in a head-on collision.

A Black Hawk helicopter was called in to evacuate the injured. The group silently watched the helicopter blades kick up dust, pick up the drivers and then fly away.

"Makes you realize that there are other dangers out here," Webb said as he drove past the crumpled trucks.

Shortly after 6 p.m., having been on the road for nearly 12 hours on what should have been a seven-hour drive, the group pulled into Scania.

They refueled, set up cots next to their Humvees determined to sleep under the stars, grabbed a quick bite to eat and settled in for a short rest.

This morning they begin the next leg of the trip, the one that runs through Baghdad. Even if no maintenance issues come up, Webb said, it's bound to be exciting.